Trump’s Latest Pardon Goes Too Far for One of Most Powerful Supporters
Even the president’s biggest supporters can’t support his latest pardon.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump expunged the criminal record of crypto billionaire and Binance exchange founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who was sentenced to four months in prison last year on charges related to money laundering. Trump claimed the Chinese-Canadian founder was the victim of political prosecution by the Biden administration.
But the news was not well received in MAGAworld. One of Trump’s richest supporters, Joe Lonsdale, a Texas-based venture capitalist and co-founder of Palantir, written the that the pardons suggested “massive fraud.”
“I love President Trump; he’s probably the best administrator I’ve ever had, except for these pardons,” Lonsdale said Thursday. “If I call balls and strikes, they’re pitches!! POTUS has been advised terribly on this; it makes it seem like there’s massive fraud going on around him in this area.”
In separate articles, Lonsdale explain that his comment was an attempt to “influence future policy in a positive direction” and that he also disagreed with Trump’s decision to pardon another white-collar criminal, Nikola CEO Trevor Milton.
Zhao’s family and Trump are financially linked. The presidential family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, has generated some $4.5 billion since the 2024 election thanks largely to a partnership with PancakeSwap, an online exchange administered by Zhao’s Binance, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.
But either Trump must think Americans are terribly stupid not to see the connection, or he is seriously mentally deficient. At a news conference Thursday, the president played dumb about Zhao, saying he didn’t remember the name of the person he pardoned the day before.
“I don’t know, it’s been recommended by a lot of people, a lot of people say: are you talking about the crypto person?” Asset said CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “A lot of people say he wasn’t guilty of anything… You don’t know much about cryptography. You don’t know anything about anything. You’re fake news.”
“I don’t know him, I don’t think I’ve ever met him, but I’ve been told he has a lot of support, he has a lot of support,” Trump said.
